Published In The Great North Arrow, June 2022: Bacon And Eggs In The Summer of '66

 - jim Young

“I love bacon. Sometimes I eat it twice a day. It helps take my mind off the terrible chest pains I keep getting.” - anon 

Vegetarians and vegans aside, who doesn’t like bacon? I know people that would wrap a couple of slices around a scoop of ice cream if they could find a way to deep fry it without melting the ice cream. Or maybe they have found a way by now.

Fortunately there are a lot of easier methods to get your bacon/ice cream fix such as simply buying Bacon Ice Cream.

If you’re looking for recipes that are a little less traditional than your usual bacon and egg breakfast, a quick google will return recipes for a bounty of bacon based bites such as bacon sushi, chocolate covered bacon, bacon milkshakes, bacon wrapped dates or bacon weave apple pie.

Personally, I am a bit more of a traditionalist and I prefer to eat my bacon with a couple of fried eggs. Wrapped around a wiener filled with cheese or on top of a juicy hamburger are also a couple of my favourite standbys.

On the rare occasion that I decide to eat healthy, I will opt for a salad with bacon bits. Lots and lots of bacon bits. Hell, you don’t even have to cut the bacon into bits if you don’t want to. I’m not picky, so long as I’m eating healthy.

When I was a young lad of about 13, I asked my Uncle Harold if I could work on his “bacon and egg farm” for the summer. Uncle Harold and Aunt Helen lived in a century old farm house in Innisfil Township that had been built by Uncle Harold’s father. 

In addition to pigs and chickens, Uncle Harold had once raised dairy cattle too. However, he had gotten out of the dairy business a few years earlier as he prepared to ease into retirement a few years from then.

Sadly, farm life can be tough and Uncle Harold “bought the farm” before he had the opportunity to “sell it.” 

But back to 1966 and my summer job on the farm. I helped Uncle Harold feed the pigs and clean out their stalls. Then I would feed the chickens and collect the eggs. It seemed like a pretty easy life to me, until Uncle Harold decided it was time I should be promoted to rototilling the corn fields or straighten out a bucket full of rusty, bent nails for reuse.

Holding the squealing baby male pigs while Uncle Harold castrated them or cut their teeth out with a pair of pliers before force feeding them a spoonful of iron wasn’t so much fun either.

Each day at lunch I was required to remain silent while Uncle Harold listened to the CBC Farm Market Report as he waited patiently for the report on pork futures. Hell, even at 13, I could have told him “Pork doesn’t have a future. At least not around here.” 

Hauling the young piglets I had watched grow up, to market, and seeing them slaughtered at the Copaco building in Barrie was another unpleasant but necessary task I had not bargained for.

I remember the end of my first week as I waited for my father to come pick me up. Uncle Harold reached into his wallet and pulled out a crisp, new $5 bill for my week’s wages. I told Uncle Harold I wasn’t expecting to be paid and I had just wanted the experience of working on a farm.

But Uncle Harold insisted that everyone who works on the farm should be paid and although $5 wasn’t a lot of money, he also reminded me I was getting free room and board.

And what room and board it was! Whenever we came in from the fields for lunch Aunt Helen had prepared a meal fit for a king. Roast beef at home was reserved for a special Sunday evening dinner. On the farm - it was just lunch.

Where I had been used to splitting one pie OR cake with my parents and 5 sisters, on the farm Uncle Harold and I would split a freshly baked pie between the two of us, FOLLOWED by cake! “We have one rule on the farm,” Uncle Harold told me the first day at lunch, “and that is, you don’t go into the fields hungry. If that means filling up on pie or cake that’s fine, but you don’t go into the fields hungry.”

I couldn’t wait to see what was for dinner! Of course I didn’t have to wait. Around 4 o’clock each day, Aunt Helen would come find us, in whatever fields we were working, with a picnic basket full of peanut butter sandwiches made on fresh homemade bread accompanied by a jug full of ice cold lemonade just to “hold us over” until suppertime.

But what does one do on the farm on a rainy day? Uncle Harold always managed to keep busy in the barn, but for a 13 year old boy, it meant a “day off”. As I looked to find something to keep me busy, Aunt Helen suggested there might be some games in the buffet in the dining room. The first drawer I opened was filled with prize ribbons.

“What are these?” I asked Aunt Helen.

“They’re your Uncle’s awards for his pigs.” Most of the ribbons that came in an array of colours were marked 1st prize with a few 2nd prize ribbons and fewer 3rd prizes. They were marked with the year and the name of the county fair that the awards had been received.

All I had known was that my uncle was a pig farmer. No one in the family had ever bragged about Uncle Harold being a “Prize Winning” Pig Farmer who was outstanding in his field. In fact, people would often see my uncle out standing in his field. (Sorry, I just couldn’t resist that old Al Boliska joke.) I was being taught by the best and even at 13 years old, I was in awe.

Recently I came across some old newspaper clippings from the 1950s that gave mention to a couple of Uncle Harold’s awards. I wish I had thought to ask for a couple of his ribbons for souvenirs. 

I’m certain, at the end of the summer I thanked Uncle Harold and Aunt Helen, but just in case I didn’t, “Thank you Uncle Harold and Aunt Helen for the great experience, the great food and the great fun I had on the farm in the summer of ‘66.”

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